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THINGS WORTH KNOWING AND REMEMBERING. 



A one-year-old cock bird mated with two-year-old hen usually 

 gives best results, or a two-year-old male with twelve-months-old fe- 

 males. In selecting hens, pick out the best layers, with strong con- 

 stitutions, good form and general size. 



A healthy hen is a hearty eater. You should have no set quantity 

 or stated amount to feed your flock, but the poultryman who studies 

 the appetites of his flock and feeds accordingly, seldom fails in get- 

 ting results. Overfeeding is not feeding well. If the stock is not do- 

 ing well and your present system of feeding is a mistake, then make 

 a change in the bill of fare. 



Do not keep any male birds with your laying hens from which 

 you are selling market eggs. The hens lay better and it saves food. 

 The eggs will keep for a much longer perior of time, and an egg which 

 is really not fertile will usually dry up and not decay, as many sup- 

 pose. The fertile eggs are the ones which rot. 



Linseed meal or oil cake should be added to your foods, especially 

 during the molting period. If properly fed it is beneficial to the 

 fowls at all times, promoting their general health and keeping them in 

 proper condition. Feed about five pounds mixed with one hundred 

 pounds ground grain. The same proportion kept before the growing 

 chicks is also advisable. 



Most poultry raisers avoid giving their fowls any salt whatever. 

 This is a mistake, for a little salt aids digestion and has a tendency 

 to ward off disease, but should never be given to excess. Salt frees 

 the blood of many of its impurities and helps to keep the system in 

 good working order, and has a tendency to expel the wiry gizzard 

 worms. There is a small amount of salt in every egg, and it makes 

 the mash mqre palatable. Do not allow any lumps of salt to go into 

 the food. 



Oyster shell is too soft to take the place of grit. Grit must be 

 hard and sharp. 



Trap nesting will help to produce a two hundred-egg flock. 

 Any farmer can pick out a pen of his best females and mate 

 them with his best male bird and trap nest the birds in that one pen 

 without any great inconvenience. Trap nests not only tell usually 

 which are our best layers, but we also learn the size and color of the 

 eggs laid and which hens lay eggs that are strongest in fertility. 

 The hens that lay during the winter months are the ones from which 

 we should really produce our future breeding stock, but by our usual 

 method of handling our birds, these winter layers are broody when 

 spring arrives and are the first to go to setting, and we have them 

 with a brood of chickens all during the hatching season, and we are 

 incubating eggs from the drones in the flock, hens which have been 

 doing nothing all during the winter. 



The best and quickest method of breaking up broody hens is to 

 build a cage entirely of laths without any solid floor to it, hang this 

 cage up in a tree somewhere out of doors so the air can pass through. 

 You can break them from setting in a very few days by this method,, 

 and it is not necessary to deprive them of food and water or to nearly 



